The green movement has helped guide some great designers to create amazing new products from materials that already exist by sourcing supplies from consumer trash. New York City-based furniture designer Chris Rucker gets right to the heart of the issue by addressing reasons why, in modern culture, trash is considered trash in the first place. Rucker uses materials such as plastic laminates, oriented-strand-board, and construction sheathing combined with quality construction methods to showcase a revolutionary and desirable aesthetic.
Ruker became fascinated with the common practice where Brooklyn residents leave abandoned furniture outside to be claimed by someone new. As he walked to and from his Brooklyn studio each day, the bundles of discarded furniture and their distressed materials began to speak to him — he wanted to know what made these pieces so disposable in the first place.
The disregarded pieces all expressed something in common — highlighted areas of common everyday wear and tear, short-lived fabrication methods, and inexpensive approaches that mimic those used to produce high-quality furnishings. Rucker began to experiment, and by re-using materials that are already considered undesirable, he found a solution to reducing furniture waste by redirecting how the average consumer visualizes something deemed worthless and transforming it into something with value.